Miss Fitzgerald, MISS Seidel, Miss Moore
White, Milton
Miss Fitzgerald, Miss Sidel, Miss Moore The Teachers I Remember Miss Fitzgerald "Remember," my mother said to me, "every once in a while maybe you'll be happy, even if it's only for a minute or...
...They're made out of a special kind of dough, stuffed with prunes...
...Sit down, David...
...I did not understand where learning began or even what learning was...
...on the green blotter that covered the top of Miss Moore's desk...
...Miss Fitzgerald tried to pronounce the word hamant ashen...
...At home I closed myself in the den room upstairs, where I read and reread what Miss Moore had written to me...
...my father asked...
...Miss Seidel shook her head...
...I saw the yellow rose on Miss Moore's desk...
...I pushed the package into her hand...
...It's all right...
...Miss Seidel stepped back from my desk...
...Then she walked to the window and looked outside...
...We kill Haman today...
...I stood on tiptoe and pressed my lips against the blue velvet covering on the scroll...
...You've misspelled the word...
...Every kid, bent over his desk, watched Miss Seidel and me...
...Go in, go in," he said...
...The shul was set far back on a wide lot, separated by an iron picket fence from the large white house next door...
...Well, have a pleasant holiday, David...
...Miss Seidel marceled her hair, which was gray and brown...
...it fell full force on a new green blotter that covered the top of Miss Moore's desk...
...My father signaled him...
...The wreath with its red velvet ribbon was the only Christmas decoration in the room...
...Miss Moore shuffled together the remaining themes on her desk...
...I could see the title of my theme, which I had block-printed at the top of the first page: "Ivanhoe, Rebecca, and The Sorrow of Love...
...I listened to the humming of the clock on the wall...
...I opened the glass door of one section of our bookcase and took out a red and gold cloth-bound Comp-ton's Encyclopedia (Vol...
...My heart sank (her eye...
...My father and I hurried down the aisle...
...It's Purim...
...You're in such a rush...
...I hated her unfair, old maid tests...
...It's a holiday," I said...
...Let them listen...
...What did you just say...
...I knew I had caught her in an error, and I said, "But that's the right way to spell it...
...It was Purim and a warm day in early March...
...One morning in class, after Miss Seidel had given us the word "orange" and I got my paper back with a big X on it where I'd spelled the word o-r-a-n-j, I challenged Miss Seidel...
...my teacher in 5B at Somer Avenue School, had a glass eye...
...Wait...
...My birthday is tomorrow...
...The theme of my poem was in the closing sentence, "Oh, may the peasants never toil in vain, nor ever hear the even' bells in fain...
...I'm ready...
...But that half-smile...
...You've done a fine paper, as usual, David...
...It was her right eye...
...When I felt that the mood of the painting had sunk deep enough into me, I sat at the den room desk and at the top of a piece of lined paper I wrote, "On Seeing Millet's The Angelus in My Classroom...
...I had found the rhyming words in the back of my Webster's dictionary...
...I want to talk to you about your theme," Miss Moore said...
...When I opened my eyes again I saw that Miss Moore was rereading my poem...
...Ashamed and triumphant...
...I nodded...
...The two women had objected to having a shul built next door to them, and every kid in the neighborhood knew they kept a pepper gun in their house, in case anyone climbed over the fence onto their property, especially on holidays...
...Everyone wants to be Rowena," I said...
...Now go to shul...
...She wet the tip of her finger with saliva and rubbed off a spot of dirt from the corner of my eye...
...she gave tests every day, one test in spelling and another in arithmetic...
...I hated her...
...She had put the yellow rose in the bud vase...
...she asked me...
...Miss Moore let her hand fall over the grade and the comment she had put next to the title...
...Yes...
...On the edge of tears I cried out again, "If I can't spell a word, how can I look it up in the dictionary...
...except that suddenly it was a complicated business, something that happened between two people, mostly between two human beings...
...I couldn't understand why she'd become angry with me...
...No such word...
...We'll start on arithmetic next," she said...
...I heard my mother and Valda, our maid, chatter to each other as they prepared supper downstairs in the kitchen...
...My father, a merchant tailor, had made the jacket for me, for Purim...
...Be sure the fold is lengthwise, to your left," Miss Seidel warned us whenever she handed out fresh sheets of paper...
...Miss Moore was both my homeroom teacher and English teacher in 8A at Park Junior High...
...The hands of the clock were at three minutes after four...
...At the Kodimoh...
...He wore a new tallis and a white satin yarmulka...
...I prayed with my eyes shut that no one in shul would notice my erection...
...Her glass eye glared at me...
...I raised my hand...
...She pointed to the student desk directly in front of her desk...
...My father said, "Dave and I are on our way to services in the synagogue...
...Terrified, fascinated...
...As soon as I got home at lunch-time, I ran upstairs to the den room, opened the unabridged dictionary (a Webster's) that we kept in our bookcase, and I found the word "orange," as Miss Seidel had spelled it...
...Then we were born in the same month," Miss Moore said...
...I hated her glass eye...
...The rabbi paused in front of me — what power my father had...
...Miss Moore ran her hand across her forehead...
...It had snowed the day after my bar mitzvah...
...Miss Moore asked...
...When Miss Seidel gave us a spelling test she would walk around the room and announce the word, and we wrote the word on a long sheet of lined paper which we'd folded so that the paper could be used for four tests during the week...
...I'd been wrong...
...Perceptive and sensitive...
...As I worked and worked on my poem I checked the meter of the lines by tapping my fingers on the desk, five beats to a line...
...For a couple of seconds Miss Seidel stared at me with her good eye...
...he asked me...
...What did that mean...
...They're already walking around with the Torah...
...I held them out to Miss Fitzgerald...
...Were they aiming...
...Perceptive and sensitive...
...There...
...She sounded angry...
...I held "Ivanhoe, Rebecca and The Sorrow of Love" unfolded and uncreased in my hand...
...She took a deep breath...
...Had Miss Moore somehow heard about what had happened at my bar mitzvah just a few days ago...
...Once more I pressed my lips against the velvet covering...
...T slammed the dictionary shut, hefted it back onto the shelf, and closed the glass door of the bookcase...
...Check it in the dictionary," Miss Seidel repeated...
...Milton White halfway down the block...
...Check it in the dictionary...
...I dropped the sponge into the pail and wiped my hands on the sides of my trousers...
...It's a Jewish holiday," I explained...
...I hoped she wouldn't say anything to the class...
...Did they have their rifle with them...
...The bell rang, and I watched Miss Moore when she came into the room...
...He held my hand as we walked toward the new Chester Street shul, Milton White, a native of Springfield, Mass., is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio...
...She nodded to the class...
...I couldn't ask for a more beautiful morning today, could I?" she said...
...Miss Seidel Miss Seidel...
...She waited until I had taken the theme from her, then added, "Someday you're going to be a writer, David...
...You really believe all this...
...I clung to the Torah...
...Aren't you going to school...
...Miss Ellen C. Moore "That's a good enough job, David," Miss Moore said...
...I don't know where to look...
...It's as simple as that...
...That's a handsome jacket...
...Miss Fitzgerald, I thought...
...It's such a beautiful winter morning," she said, simply...
...The bell for our first class rang: For me and for Hilda Yunker, who sat next to me across the aisle, it was Latin in Room 218 down the hall...
...She had light brown hair, blue eyes, and a peaches and cream complexion...
...Miss Seidel with her gray and brown hair, marceled...
...You've written such a sad paper," she said...
...Miss Seidel with her old maid tests...
...She walked down the aisle and sat at her desk, alone in the silence of the classroom...
...Both her eyes, both of them, matched for a change as far as direction was concerned, but I noticed that her real eye was a little more blue than her glass eye...
...Miss Moore moved away from the window...
...Miss Moore turned around and faced us...
...I'm going to be back in school tomorrow," I said, staring at the smoothness of her skin...
...Hello, David," she said...
...Inside the shul the congregation shouted prayers while all the kids — the girls had come downstairs into the men's section — twirled graggers, stamped their feet, and cried out against Haman each time Haman's name was spoken in the reading...
...You look so nice this morning," Miss Fitzgerald said...
...Look, I have these hamant ashen...
...You're ready...
...Suddenly she leaned forward...
...I kept staring over my shoulder at the two old women, and so I did not see Miss Fitzgerald until she stopped in front of me and my father...
...but I pointed to the word "oranj" and said, "I think you made a mistake marking this wrong...
...I saw the class themes on Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe in two piles (one graded, one ungraded, had she read mine...
...Are you ready...
...I shrugged and looked out' the window at the dome of the Kodimoh synagogue...
...Pass your papers to the front row...
...Each morning she brought into the classroom a single yellow rose which she put in the bud vase on her desk (I was the one who saw that the vase had fresh water in it...
...She was the only teacher in the school with bobbed hair (light blonde...
...But if I can't spell it how can I look it up in the dictionary," I cried out...
...It's a Gruen, a birthday present from my mother and father...
...My father wore a dark gray pinstripe suit...
...Shadows shifted on the Wilson's front porch...
...There were four of them wrapped in waxed paper, in my pocket...
...As the class started to file out of homeroom, I saw her put her hand out and touch my poem that lay on the new green blotter that covered the top of her desk...
...Well...
...With her glass eye she attended to the other students in the room...
...Don't let her tell the class...
...We got dressed up to go to synagogue," I said to Miss Fitzgerald...
...The snow packed on the window ledge turned purple in the late light...
...I looked farther down the page in the hope I would also find "oranj...
...I looked up at the Christmas wreath around the wall clock...
...I could hear the loud chanting of prayers from inside the shul...
...I had learned from Miss Seidel how to spell a word...
...Miss Fitzgerald, Miss Sidel, Miss Moore The Teachers I Remember Miss Fitzgerald "Remember," my mother said to me, "every once in a while maybe you'll be happy, even if it's only for a minute or two...
...O-r-a-n-g-e...
...Each Wednesday afternoon, after school, it was my turn to wash the blackboards and clean the erasers...
...I saw two shadows move on the porch of the white house...
...She put her briefcase in her swivel chair, leaned over her desk, and standing there, she read the poem I had written...
...I had to work hard to get a grade of B from her...
...The classroom became hushed...
...I remembered the hamantashen my mother had given me...
...You can take this home now, if you want to...
...Seated on the floor, in the deepening twilight, I opened the encyclopedia to the page on Jean Francois Millet...
...Ivanhoe, Rebecca and The Sorrow of Love, A...
...Miss Seidel with her glass eye...
...I'll bet they don't like the singing...
...Let them look," he said...
...For about fifteen minutes I simply stared at the photograph of Millet's "The Angelus," a painting of a young peasant couple standing in the field at the close of day, praying...
...Oh, I didn't know it was a holiday today," Miss Fitzgerald said...
...Now I knew...
...She never had to give any A's because it was almost impossible to get 100 percent on any of her tests, and I was pretty good at spelling...
...Miss Seidel had been right, then, all the time...
...With a flourish, he handed me a wooden gragger...
...She had given me an A+ and had written next to the title, "Excellent work...
...5 L-M...
...Rabbi Goldman started to move away from me...
...She was the only teacher who had ever loved me...
...She had on a blue dress and some clear crystal beads I had never seen before...
...Haman wanted to kill the Jews, but Esther saved them...
...Sunlight streamed into the classroom...
...Miss Fitzgerald was my teacher at Jefferson School, where I was in second grade...
...The procession of kids clustered around us...
...I saw the wreath of white pine that encircled the clock on the wall...
...I glanced up at her...
...In the winter light that came through the window, Miss Moore's profile was outlined against the dome of the Kodimoh synagogue across the street from Park Junior High...
...The classroom was quiet...
...Amidst the shouting of the kids crowded around us and the ratchet noise of the graggers...
...Rabbi Goldman leaned toward me and lowered the Torah so that I could kiss it...
...The kids in the room sat silent, uncomprehending...
...And happy birthday, David, even if it is a couple of days late...
...Don't expect more...
...The corner of her mouth turned up in a half-smile...
...Miss Moore had a large photograph of "The Angelus" on the wall over the blackboards in our classroom...
...She was an old maid and a tough teacher...
...Beneath that I wrote "This Poem is dedicated to Ellen C. Moore" and underlined the words...
...She picked my theme from the pile of papers in front of her...
...I see you're wearing a new wrist watch...
...She unwrapped the waxed paper and examined the hamantashen...
...I walked home alone in the cold afternoon, kicking at the icy snow heaped along the edges of the cleared sidewalks...
...Write it down, then look it up in a dictionary later...
...She carried a single fresh yellow rose...
...I wondered, startled...
...I felt her glass eye was turned on me...
...She said quietly, "The word is spelled o-r-a-n-g-e...
...There are the Wilson sisters, watching," I said to my father...
...He is the author of three novels, and his short stories have appeared in a number of magazines including HARPER'S and THE NEW YORKER...
...Miss Fitzgerald's cheek must be as soft as velvet, but more sweet...
...Did Miss Moore know I was Jewish...
...They look wonderful...
...My mother makes a lot of them for Purim...
...We put our name in the upper righthand corner...
...He was a handsome man, short, balding, and he had beautiful dark brown eyes...
...As my father and I turned up onto the long concrete walk to the shul, I watched Miss Fitzgerald continue on her separate way to school and the classroom on the second floor...
...her eye...
...Miss Seidel came over to my desk and leaned over my shoulder as she looked at my paper...
...I stumbled on the steps of the shul...
...You've been over them twice," Miss Moore added...
...A splendid piece of writing...
...I'll eat them with my lunch," Miss Fitzgerald said...
...I'd written that the blonde and gentile Rowena would always be Queen of Love and Beauty in the Tournament of Life, and that no matter how much Rebecca loved Ivanhoe, she would never be able to win his love because she was a Jewess...
...Rabbi Goldman, in a white silk robe, carried the Torah against his shoulder as he led a procession of boys and girls singing around the altar platform...
...I could smell the chalk dust I had picked up in the soggy sponge I held...
...Goldstein, the vice-president of the shul, greeted my father and me at the door...
...The first line of the poem came easy: "The peasants fold their hands at even' bells . . ." The house was quiet except for the sounds my mother and Valda made in the kitchen, a million miles away...
...She finished combing my hair...
...I wore a gray flannel jacket with a belt in the back...
...Oh my God, oh my God...
...My father waited for me on the front porch...
...Miss Seidel faced me...
...My poem, on clean white paper, stood out in the center of the blotter...
...When she leaned over my desk to check on my arithmetic or spelling paper, T braced myself, certain that her glass eye would fall out and roll down my desk and into my lap...
...I could smell the wet slate of the blackboard...
...Were the beads a present to her...
...With a pail of water in one hand and a sponge in the other I turned away from the wet blackboard and faced the classroom...
...Well," I said, "happy birthday to you tomorrow...
...The next morning I left a copy of my poem on Miss Moore's desk...
...I cried to him...
...The morning sunlight shone on her bobbed blonde hair...
...No matter what part of the classroom Miss Seidel stood in...
...The Wilson sisters, who were gentiles, old maids, lived in the house...
Vol. 1 • December 1975 • No. 5
